The Greatest Adventure Is What Lies Ahead
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In the days after the incident with Ravi, things settled back into a more normal routine. I spent most of my time working on the ship and training with Tariq, but when our schedules allowed, we’d go out onto the town to do something fun.
The last couple of weeks before we set sail was pretty crazy because all three of us had projects going simultaneously: me building up my magic, Tariq learning how to fight properly so he could join me if the need arose, and Daphne was getting ready for her big show in San Francisco at the end of summer.
As I told her over dinner one night, it looked like they were all working toward different goals, which wasn’t exactly what I hoped for them, but they did get along really well.
I also started spending some time around the apartment again. After my conversation with Ravi about what happened between him and me, I decided to be very careful not to push his buttons any more than necessary.
It was still weird as hell when he showed up unexpectedly, especially since we never went anywhere together anymore without being invited to do so, but we didn’t have an argument or anything. We just kind of let things ride where they might.
And then finally came that fateful day. We had been sailing through the Pacific Ocean for nearly two months, having already traveled thousands of miles west across North America. In this part of the world, we were nearing the northern tip of the Aleutians.
At least once a day, Daphne would check the charts, look at the map, or consult the GPS unit she’d bought for us, while we all gathered around the small table in our galley and discussed our plans for that particular leg of our trip.
It was a typical early afternoon; Daphne was looking through maps as usual, while we sat around talking. Tariq was sitting on the bench seat next to mine, eating a piece of toast while we watched him from behind, as he talked quietly with Daphne.
I was leaning against the doorframe in front of Tariq, chewing slowly on my own piece of toast as I listened to the two of them discuss some detail of their current journey, while the smell of bread filled my nose. All in all, a perfectly ordinary scene … except for one thing.
Tariq’s right hand was resting casually on top of mine, and he hadn’t let it go even after we finished discussing the details of today’s upcoming passage. He seemed relaxed and comfortable with the contact. Not so much that he needed constant reassurance, but enough to give him comfort and confidence when it mattered.
The only way you could tell something was off is by comparing it to everything else we did during every other moment of the day. And it was clear we couldn’t live our lives this way. If we did, we’d probably drive each other nuts.
But damn if it didn’t feel good to have him there.
Daphne broke away first. “Okay, here are our coordinates,” she said, pulling out a sheet from her backpack. She held it up so the four of us could see it. “We’re heading toward Prince William Sound now.” Then she handed Tariq the chart of Alaska as he leaned forward to take her place. She walked back to the table and poured herself a mug of coffee, while I turned my attention toward the map.
Prince William Sound was home to some beautiful mountains and waterfalls, not too far south of Fairbanks, Alaska. The plan was simple enough: we’d head due south until reaching the Gulf of Alaska near the Aleutian Islands. From there, we’d turn around and come back north to Seattle.
That was the general route for this leg, but we were free to wander as we wished, taking the shortest paths possible.
That was fine for us, because I was still trying to figure out how best to train myself for magic, and my biggest weakness was speed. I was still figuring out a few things about how to use my power, and in doing so I’d learned that there were several ways to make the same spell faster and easier.
One way was to simply think faster; another was to move faster. So I worked hard during our daily expeditions to keep up with Daphne and the others. They didn’t know I was using my newfound powers to work on the problem, and so they continued to run at what felt like their natural pace and distance for them and left me behind most of the time.
It wasn’t easy. Every step of the way I tried to keep up while pushing myself mentally and physically to find a way to match them. There were times when I’d catch up to them, only to fall behind again the next moment. But I knew that was normal; it took time to get better.
“So what’s the story?” asked Tariq, interrupting my concentration.
I looked up from the map; his voice sounded loud enough to carry over the sounds of waves breaking gently on the hull. “Huh?”
He smiled at me. “Why does everyone ask questions instead of answering them? Do they do this when you visit your family too, or just the people who aren’t from around here?”
I shrugged, turning my gaze back down to the map. “Sometimes.”
“What’s going on here?”
Daphne cleared her throat. “Ahh, well … We’re planning on heading into Prince William Sound soon. We’ll be coming in from the west coast, so it should be an easy trip for us to follow the shoreline and sail straight into the sound itself.” She paused for a second as if thinking about something, before continuing. “This is where we plan on finding the next big clue.”
I pulled my hand from under Tariq’s fingers and rested it on the map of Alaska. Daphne was staring at me curiously, while Tariq stared at her quizzically. “You mean you haven’t found anything yet?”
She shook her head quickly; then she pointed to the paper on which we’d drawn our course across the state. It showed a line from the Gulf of Alaska, past Prince William Sound, around the coast, and back to the Gulf once more.
“Well, we’ve had a little trouble getting started,” she admitted, as she sipped her coffee. “The weather isn’t always cooperative, but lately we’ve been able to make progress without issue.” Her eyes fell on me for a moment. “You’re looking better, Liam.”
Her words made me smile. Even though Daphne was a witch, she wasn’t a wizard-like I was; she couldn’t cast spells on someone just by staring at them. But that didn’t matter to me. All we needed to communicate was telepathy—and she understood me perfectly.
“Thank you.”
A moment passed between us, and then she nodded. “Okay, we’ll get underway then.”
We all stood up from our places on the floor and moved toward the deck to watch as the ship slipped from its moorings, and headed out to sea. The ocean breeze blew steadily against us as we sailed, and we let ourselves lean lazily toward one side or the other every now and then, soaking up the sun.
My mind was busy working on a problem. When I thought about how far I was falling behind my friends on this voyage, I realized that even if I somehow caught up and became magically equal to them in a day or two, it wouldn’t help me much. What they lacked in magical training they made up for in strength.
I’d need a lot of time to become physically capable of running at their pace and staying ahead of them. And it would take longer than that to learn how to actually use magic, too. My goal had been to be ready for the trials after summer vacation ended, and that was quickly slipping away from me.
When we came to Prince William Sound, I knew we’d have to wait out bad weather and maybe even spend days waiting for the right winds to arrive before we could safely set off. I felt helpless and frustrated, but at least things hadn’t gotten any worse. That meant there was hope yet.
***
The next morning, with a good wind blowing behind us and nothing blocking our path, Daphne and I stood on deck and gazed out at the vast expanse of water ahead of us. It stretched forever in all directions until the horizon finally met the sky—but neither Daphne nor I had ever seen the far edge of the world, so it might have been further than anyone had imagined.
“How long will we be doing this?” I asked.
Daphne sighed heavily as she turned to regard me. “I really wish you wouldn’t ask me that question every ten minutes. Just because I can’t tell you when we’ll be done doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
I shrugged; I already knew I couldn’t push her into saying more; it wasn’t my place to demand answers from her. But as the wind tugged at my hair, and the waves splashed against our ship, I couldn’t keep myself from imagining what was out there beyond this endless ocean, and I wondered if she did the same thing.
Did she ever look forward to reaching land? Or was she just happy to see another sunrise each new dawn that followed another sleepless night?
After several moments of silence, I decided I’d try one more time. “What happens if we find nothing when we reach Prince William Sound?”
Daphne turned and looked at me with an intense expression; she appeared lost in thought for a few seconds before she spoke again. “It will be disappointing, but …” Her voice trailed off. “No one knows how many people were killed by the vampires.” She paused briefly before adding: “And if we don’t discover their resting places, it will certainly give us something else to do.”
For once, she didn’t seem bothered that she hadn’t yet discovered their exact locations. Maybe it was different when she wasn’t looking for her own loved ones …
“If we do find them, you should probably stay back from whatever we’re looking at. You shouldn’t see what we’re trying not to remember.”
As soon as those words left her mouth, she glanced quickly toward me, and she saw something in my eyes. I was sure I was wrong, but I still sensed fear coming from her—even though I could hardly feel anything at all. I’d grown used to feeling things around me.
Then Daphne seemed to shake herself. As she stepped closer to me, the air around us thickened and swirled and grew warmer, and her skin flushed pink. It felt like being wrapped tightly in a blanket on a cold day, only warm instead of chilly.
The scent of flowers suddenly filled the air, and it felt as if the very sea itself was blooming with fragrant blooms. Then, when we were as close as we could possibly be, Daphne leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips. A moment later, we were gone.
***
Our destination was a small island called Angel Isle; Prince William Sound was just part of it, but since Angel Isle lay between us and the sound, Prince William Sound was the best place we had to start our search.
The water was still choppy and rough enough that we needed three ships to make the crossing, so we took turns traveling through the passage to keep the sailors rested and fresh for our journey. We had just arrived at Angel Isle when I finally managed to convince Daphne to tell me why she was afraid.
“You should never want to see it,” she said, her hands gripping mine.
She didn’t answer when I asked what it was she wanted to hide from me, so I figured I wouldn’t push any harder. Instead, I asked: “Are we going to be able to leave here without finding anything?”
“We’ll go where the wind takes us,” she said simply, then she kissed my cheek before turning away from me to gaze out across the ocean.
That night, Daphne insisted we sleep in separate chambers so that we weren’t constantly distracted by the presence of someone else’s nightmares. I had no idea how to respond to that suggestion, so I tried not to think about it.
While everyone else was sleeping peacefully in the middle of the night, I sat up beside Daphne in the dark. My hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and I watched over her silently while we waited for the dawn. I hoped the light would bring a new beginning for both of us.
A short distance away, the stars shone brightly in the sky, but the moonlight wasn’t enough to illuminate everything. It was impossible to see what was directly around me, let alone farther out into the open sea. I closed my eyes and listened carefully.
The only thing I heard was the gentle lapping of waves against the hulls and the occasional splash of something moving quickly under the surface. I tried to imagine it as a shark or a whale, but neither animal sounded quite right, which was why I eventually gave up trying to picture anything at all and focused on my senses instead.
I smelled a faint hint of salt water. When I opened my eyes and looked toward the deck, my attention was immediately drawn to the lantern that hung nearby. It was lit because there was no other source of light in this section of the ship; the lantern provided just enough illumination for our crew to maneuver safely through these waters.
But I noticed something odd: The light didn’t look quite natural. I realized the flame was flickering and changing color as if it wasn’t burning properly.
When I touched my fingertips to the metal, I got a sense of danger—the same sort of tension and unease that I experienced when I sensed Daphne’s fear.
But then, after a few moments, the glow in the lantern suddenly stopped fluttering and became steady once again. And then I realized why the light looked so strange …
I’d seen this happen before: In fact, I’d seen it many times, but I’d never been able to figure out how to stop it. No matter how much time passed, whenever one of the sailors came too close to a fire, the flame changed color as if it were responding to his fear.
I could feel the heat, smell the smoke, and hear the crackling flames even though we were hundreds of feet below the surface of the sea. The lantern was glowing red hot, and it threatened to burn its own wooden supports down to nothingness.
I pulled myself onto the railing and stretched out my hand as far as it would stretch so that I could touch the top of the lantern. I knew the fire inside must be consuming some sort of oil, and I wanted to find out exactly what kind.
My fingers found their way into the opening, and I began to dig through the mess of different oils until I discovered one that felt like a blend of several different liquids. It burned like it had no real substance. As soon as my finger made contact with it, the lantern turned blue again.
That meant that whatever I found had been mixed specifically for use in torches and lamps so that it would produce little or no light.
“What are you doing?” Daphne asked, pulling herself up beside me and reaching for my wrist. But I couldn’t stop looking. I was curious about the contents of that particular bottle, and I had to know what it did.
After a moment, I grabbed a small handful of sand from a jar on the deck and rubbed it between my hands. A cloud of bubbles emerged, and I held my breath until they popped. There was a brief flash of light that filled the entire room with a soft radiance, then it faded back to darkness again.
This time, however, I felt something else as well. Something else was in the room with me, watching … but I didn’t see it.
The sand fell to the floor, and I realized I hadn’t imagined it. Someone had been following us and waiting patiently.
“Why would anyone have this stuff on board?” Daphne wondered.
It took several long minutes to get my senses back under control. I had to focus on the present before I could think about what I’d felt. After being so deep beneath the ocean for so long, I’d lost my ability to read objects in a crowded place. Now that I was more aware of what was happening outside, my eyes and ears were functioning correctly once again, and I knew it was safe to go downstairs.
I helped Daphne prepare breakfast. Her family had already eaten, but she offered me food anyway. It tasted bland and insubstantial in comparison to anything I’d ever experienced before—as though all the flavor had been stripped away and replaced by an empty sensation. It wasn’t unpleasant; it just wasn’t delicious, either.
Daphne told me that I shouldn’t stay in her house very often and that I should spend most of my nights sleeping outside with the wolves, where I belonged. I promised that I wouldn’t make any more appearances, and I thought maybe things would change after that.
But I never stayed in a wolf’s den for longer than a few hours; it was too difficult for me to remain awake without human company. So after a couple weeks, Daphne stopped asking. She simply accepted that I might show up for a night here and there when I got too lonely to sleep alone.
As the summer grew hotter, Daphne spent every free moment on land trying to track down the people who’d attacked her parents. The police couldn’t do much, but Daphne was determined to bring them to justice. Sometimes, I accompanied her when I could, but she always tried to talk me out of going.
I didn’t want to disappoint her, but it seemed impossible not to worry while standing around at a crime scene.
She insisted that we leave our names with the police as witnesses. They needed eyewitnesses to verify the events of the day, and if someone happened to come forward later and say, “No, that was the wrong person,” the police had our signatures to prove otherwise. It sounded reasonable enough, so I agreed.
One evening, we were talking late into the night about a case that had gone unsolved before I was born. It concerned the murder of four college students whose bodies had been found floating near a local dam. We were debating whether or not they’d jumped off a bridge, slipped over the side, or fallen into the water by accident.
Suddenly, Daphne gasped and dropped a piece of bread into her bowl of porridge. I reached for it, only to find that she was staring right past me toward the door. My stomach sank as my brain caught up. The police had arrived.
The End